Représentations conceptuelles par les acteurs entrepreneuriaux : apport des correspondances spatiales ascendantes

The literature on entrepreneurial growth cognition insists on the lack of available knowledge to better understand this phenomenon. There has been a paucity of research on the effectiveness of business support providers dedicated to the growth of the young VSE (Very Small Business). However, in practice, differences in collective representations between entrepreneurial actors regarding the implementation of growth-oriented actions constitute a threat to the effectiveness of these types of business support providers. However, a finer understanding of entrepreneurs and business support professionals? convergent and divergent representations, as they relate to growth-oriented actions as a resource orchestration process, would be relevant to guide entrepreneurial actors facing this challenge. To shed light on this issue, the Group Concept Mapping (GCM) framework coupled with a randomized Procrustes analysis were used. This mixed methods-based and ascending methodological framework is useful to empirically determine the representations of entrepreneurs and business support professionals by isolating their respective spatial correspondence. The empirical results help identify and measure the convergent and divergent representations of growth-oriented actions held by entrepreneurial actors. An epistemological positioning in critical realism (RC) makes possible a theoretical contribution by articulating growth-oriented generative mechanisms extracted from the representations of the entrepreneurial actors. Regarding the managerial contribution of the effort, divergent representations have been established with respect to business support, financing, and risk management growth-oriented actions.